A streetside glimpse of India from Bangalore - no paid news, no lobbying, no plants, no stringing along - just pure viewpoints. My own political education. Satire Alert (At times)!
Because, nothing is permanent, only interim!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

This is really a redux of the Six blind men of Hindoostan, a poem by John Godfrey Saxe - a poem most of us know either by rote or are definitely familiar with. In the poem, 6 blind men argue about how the elephant is something else, depending on what part of the elephant they touch etc etc.

Today, the elephant is a scam and heres how the six blinding actors help the "thieves" hide the elephant in the room. They shine the light in all the wrong places, including their audiences eyes so that they miss the elephant in the room, unless it belongs to the BJP.

First blinding man is the media. First it denies that the elephant exists and then when confronted states that it knew that the elephant was in the room all along and they were telling you this.While this is happening, another channel calls it vile propoganda. And if there is somebody in the media who is hell bent on unearthing the truth, they just ignore it while focusing solely on wardrobe malfunctions and such like.

Second blinding man is the government itself. First they get extremely verbose old men into the room to state their argument aided and abetted by the first blinding man above where they agree vociferously and vehemently that this entire elephant is a notional elephant.

Here is where the third actors come in. They are useful idiots - mostly not star journalists turned CEOs - but genuinely good writers, who by virtue of various qualifications or with the necessity of impressing the powers that be come to the aid of one and two by writing Op-eds and what not to further cloud reality.

While all this happening, the fourth actor - the Chamcha Bureau of Investigation - also known as the School of Magic, aids in the disappearance of files, peoples and on occasion - entire histories. Sometimes, they bare their fangs and get incredibly efficient, including getting courts to open on holidays and rapidly arrest office bearers - mostly from enemy territory within the country.

While the four bright lights are shining in one direction, the fifth, a so called honest integrated puppet actor known for minor roles in the Bureaucracywood swings into action clouding perfectly organized loots as error of judgement, coalition drama (I meant, Dharma), claims amnesia and manages to get into the front pages of newspapers.

That leaves the honest citizen wondering if he should vote an alternative government - for which the media provides us mug shots of the most charismatic person ever born who shall ever remain youthful at middle age and reminds us of the bad things 4 years of non Congress rule did for us while conveniently ignoring the 60 years of the millstone around our neck. There are other reminders of frequently repeated speeches on the dual sided nature of the country.

And here is where the last actor comes in. Time. In the great country that is India, anybody can have the watches, but the scamsters have the time. The elephant is neatly sliced into smallish pieces while all the above 5 actors are at work. The elephant is divided across generations, ferried across countries, into cold storages to accumulate interest so that the generations ahead can enjoy the fruits of hard labour...